O is for Outdoors

April marks the 15th anniversary of my blog, so during the A-Z blogging challenge, I will be sharing previous posts from over 2,100 I have written.

Ward and I like to hike and just, in general, be outside. (Well, I'm more of a fair-weather outdoor enthusiast.) I often share here when we've had a nature outing. This post was in October 2023, when cold weather was encroaching on our pleasant days. 

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Outdoor Amble Ramble

Maine isn't the only place with cold and snow. We get our fair share here in Maryland.

I love being outdoors. Well, I love being outdoors in fair weather. Cold, not so much. But not everyone agrees with me. I watched America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston on PBS the other night, where he visited Maine, and the theme was embracing the cold. He spent time with people doing various things outside - all in the cold. Looked crazy to me, but everyone was happy. My sister lives in Maine and has not entirely embraced the cold, but her husband, who grew up there, has. And her kids. I remember what a novelty it seemed when I heard they did snowshoeing in PE. And my grandnephew was in an outdoor preschool where they spent most of their time outdoors, no matter what the weather was. I guess it's all what you're used to. 

As we're moving into cold weather, I am inspired to be like Mainers and spend more time outside in the cold (she says from the warmth of her home). I know that Ward will be a very willing participant. When we're out together, I say I'm freezing, and he says it's invigorating, with a happy smile. And if truth be told, I find that annoying sometimes (always.) 

But it's good for us to spend time outdoors. You've probably heard reports on studies saying so. I recently read one by the Max Planck Institute that says spending time outdoors is not only good for your mood but also for your brain function. And it wouldn't hurt me to have a boost in both areas. :) But I'll start tomorrow. Today is cold and rainy. I think I will have to work up to it.

In the meantime, Ward and I walked at an Audubon Bird sanctuary a couple of days ago when the weather was beautiful. This is my favorite kind of outdoor activity. Here are a few pictures from our walk.

The sanctuary encompasses 129 acres of various habitats
of woodlands, meadows, wetlands, and streams.

It was a sunny, clear day.

The sanctuary used to be an old farm, and the first trail we took was an old farm road.

I'm always amazed that the redbud tree has such little flowers but such big seed pods.

An old farm pond.

More evidence of the farm.

We couldn't figure out what kind of tree had this interesting trunk growth.

They had some pretty serious deterrents with the birdhouses
 to keep out interlopers and predators.

Next time, we need to take Aunt Martha, our local bird expert, with us. Our untrained eyes didn't see any birds, although we did hear some. But it was a pleasant outing, all the same. And I can already feel my brain working better. :)

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Until next time...

N is for Nail Polish

 

April marks the 15th anniversary of my blog, so during the A-Z blogging challenge, I will be sharing previous posts from over 2,100 I have written.

Apparently, in May 2016, I started a series about body parts beginning with toes. Next, I moved onto fingers. I don't remember doing these posts, but it looks like I was having fun with them. Perhaps after the A-Z Challenge is over, I'll pick it up again. Here's the one about fingers that features an interesting discussion of nail polish.

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Nail Polish and other interesting bits of info about fingers.

A few weeks ago, I did a couple of posts about toes--specifically, pedicures. Well, now it's time to give fingers some equal time.

I read something recently about fingers that I found very interesting. It concerned the prune-like fingers you get when you've had your hands in water for a long time. Apparently, if you have nerve damage to your fingers, the skin on them won't wrinkle when it gets overly wet. This knowledge has been around at least since 1936, when a journal article was published about a case involving a young man who had the nerves to have some of his fingers cut but not others. And you guessed it, the ones without nerve connections didn't wrinkle when wet, but the others did.

So how does the pruning effect happen, anyway? Well, I'm not sure that I understand it all, but it is something like this. We have sweat glands in our fingers. Not only does water come out of those, but it also goes in. When extra water is absorbed, they expand. The nerves sense this and tell the small arteries in the fingers to contract, which results in wrinkles.

Now, I found the above bit of information really interesting. However, I find the next bit of information about fingers just strange. In Hong Kong, they have nail polish that tastes like KFC chicken. There are two flavors--regular and hot and spicy. While the idea of licking my fingertips all day is gross to me, I have to admit that to have nail polish that tastes like fried chicken and is "finger lickin' good" is a brilliant marketing scheme.

Apparently, Hong Kong doesn't have the market on edible nail polish. There is a company based in California that sells edible nail polish for kids. It's called Kid Licks and was founded on the basis that kids put everything in their mouths anyway, so they might as well have some fun and paint their nails. They have three colors: Beet Red, Sour Carrot Orange, and Barley Grass Green. They are made from organic, non-GMO ingredients and can be removed with water. In fact, if your kid puts their hands in their mouth a lot, they won't last very long. This product just seems silly to me, but I, myself, rarely have a manicure, so I'm not sure how to judge.

What do you think about this world of finger news?

Stay tuned for the next in the series of strange (to me) body things, when we move on to faces.

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Until next time...

M is for M & Ms

April marks the 15th anniversary of my blog, so during the A-Z blogging challenge, I will be sharing previous posts from over 2,100 I have written.

On my blog, I occasionally report on an experiment I've tried, like the time I tried to fry an egg on a hot sidewalk. Today, I going to rerun the post describing the time I tried to determine if different colored M &Ms have different tastes. This post originally ran in April 2016.

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Can You Taste the Difference?

One day at work, a friend commented that she didn't like the red M&M's as well as the other colors. I said they all tasted the same, and she insisted that the red ones were different. Well, I thought this comment definitely needed further investigation.

Do the different colors taste different?

Off I went to get a bag of M&M's. I carefully tasted each color, and indeed, the red did taste different. Must be something with the dye, I thought. But did the red just taste different because I expected it to? Next, I tried a blind taste test, and the results were not as conclusive, but still, there could be something there about the red ones tasting different.

After that, I enlisted the help of my husband and son. I had no problem getting their help when I told them all they had to do was eat M&M's. Again, the results were inconclusive, but there still was enough of a trend to warrant more examination.

Then I sat down to design an experiment to test the theory that red M&M's taste different than the other colors and to get more data points. As it turns out, with so many different colors to work with, the design got quite complicated. In fact too complicated to carry out the experiment in the casual way I wanted. That meant I simplified things so that I was no longer using journal-worthy test methods, but I proceeded anyway.

I went to Aldi's to get a couple of large bags of M&M's to start setting up the experiment. Well, one thing led to another, and it took me several days before I got a chance to get much done. And I think you can guess what happened next? I ate all of the variables (M&M's). A couple of weeks later, I got more M&M's to try again. And guess what? I ate them before I got the experiment set up.

So what were my conclusions? Maybe the red ones do taste different, but more work needs to be done to know for sure. However, more conclusively, I proved that I like M&M's and have little self-control when they are around.

Have you ever noticed that one color of an M&M tasted different than another?

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M is also for But Wait, There's More!

Spring is continuing to show itself in a burst of blooms, and I'm going to share some of that. Sometimes, I refer back to these kinds of posts to compare the timing of seasonal things from year to year.

Lilac

Viburnum

Tulips

Bleeding heart

Daffodil

Crabapple

Apple

Grape hyacinth

There. I'm finally done for today.

Until next time...

L is for Lost Rings

 

April marks the 15th anniversary of my blog, so during the A-Z blogging challenge, I will be sharing previous posts from over 2,000 I have written.

Back in June 2018, Ward got a curious email and package. Below, I share that story as well as one of my own about a lost ring.

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Wait, and it will come

We got an interesting email the other day from the office of student affairs at Virginia Tech. The email said that someone found Ward's class ring and contacted them because they wanted to return it. The university was trying to verify if they had the right person to go with the name engraved inside the ring.

It turns out that a man in Kansas found the ring in the bottom of a box while he was going through things in preparation for moving. He has no idea how it got there. The last Ward remembers, he took it off to wash his hands in a bathroom and hasn't seen it since. That was 25 years ago in Houston. The man said he has never been to Houston and has no association with Virginia Tech. So far, no one can connect any dots to understand how he ended up with it. The stranger very kindly mailed it to Ward, and he got it yesterday. Ward was thrilled to have it back. Hooray for the kindness of strangers.

This story reminds me of a ring I lost several years ago. My sister had a new house, and I was helping her paint. I took off my rings to keep them clean and put them in my pocket. However, later that day, when I went to put them back on, my engagement ring was missing. I searched high and low for weeks and even got a metal detector to go through my sister's yard. My best guess was that when I took my car keys out of my pocket, the ring came out, too.

Of course, there was sentimental value to the ring for me, but I could get another one if I wanted. I was more concerned about what I was going to tell Ward's grandmother. The ring had been her mother's, and she very carefully said that if anything ever happened between Ward and me, the ring would come back so that it would stay in the family.  In the beginning, I hoped that the ring would show up somewhere. However, after several months, when I still hadn't found it, I started to worry about how I was going to tell his grandmother. Each time I visited, I tried to hide my hand so she wouldn't notice. I considered not telling her, but I didn't think that was the right thing to do. Just as soon as I had finally decided that I was going to tell her on our next visit, my sister called. She had found the ring! She was planting flowers and found it buried in the dirt. Boy, was I happy! That happened on Mother's Day, and I'm not sure if there was significance to that, but I think there might be.

There you have it. Two lost rings, two found rings. Sometimes it does pay to be patient.

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Until next time...

K is for Kinetic Sculpture Race

 

April marks the 15th anniversary of my blog, so during the A-Z blogging challenge, I will be sharing previous posts from over 2,000 I have written.

For a while, I wrote a Thankful Sunday post every Sunday. I would elaborate on one thing I was thankful for. On this Sunday in May in 2019, I was thankful for the good time I had at the Kinetic Sculpture Race. The races are held on the first Saturday in May every year, so it's coming up soon. I hope we can work it into our schedule again because you never know what you will see, and it's always a fun time.

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I am thankful for a fun day!

Last weekend, Ward and I went with another couple to the Kinetic Sculpture Race in Baltimore. The Kinetic Sculpture Race is one of those things that you have to experience to really understand, but I'll give it a try. It's a 14-mile race with human-powered vehicles that have to go on road, through water, through sand, and through mud. That's the kinetic part of it. The sculpture part is that all of the vehicles are sculpted and decorated, usually embracing the theme for the year. There are prizes at the end, the most coveted one being the finisher in dead middle.

Another way to describe the race is as a fun, festive, silly way to spend the day with lots of smiling people.

The day was perfect weather-wise, with overcast skies and temperatures in the 70s. It was the second time for Ward and I to attend the race so we were able to show the ropes to our friends. They were particularly interested in the engineering of the racers since they coach a kids' team that builds and races human-powered submarines.

I've heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case, that might be true. Below is a sampling of pictures to give you a taste of the day.

We arrived early so we would be able to see the vehicles up close and talk to the crew members as they put on their final touches. 

Most vehicles were based on bicycles one way or another. However, this one used a pump car like you see on railroad tracks. They individually welded and made each part of their wheels.

On the sides of this one, you can see the flotation devices it will use when it enters the water.

The theme for the race this year was Wheel-ality TV (reality TV). These are two "Real Housewives from Uranus". That's their spaceship behind them.

Each vehicle has to to through a safety check including a brake check where it has to stop on a dime. (The silver cardboard disc on the ground is the 'dime'.)

This was a Hammerhead Shark entry. It was one of several shark themes.

There were teams of all ages from kids to veteran-race adults. The teams came from schools, businesses, and groups of friends who thought it looked like it might be fun to try the race.

You got information for the day from anyone with a chicken. They could be holding a chicken or dressed like one like you see in the background.

This member of security was quite popular in his gold velveteen suit.

The opening ceremonies included the blessing of the feet of the pilots. There was also a drum corp and pom squad from a local high school, an adult chorus that sang the National Anthem and a medley of TV theme songs, the lighting of the Kenetic Torch, and silly speeches. 

After going through local neighborhoods, the race proceeded to the harbor. There contestants entered and exited the water on boat ramps on either side of a pier. This was always a touch and go situation as capsizing and errant steering happen more often than the racers would like. Some entries ended up being pulled by a rope to complete the water portion.

This entry did pretty well. BTW, the wings were done with a 3-D printer.

Always a crowd pleaser is Tic-Toc the Croc. Because of its length (35'), it had to go pretty far beyond the pier to make the turn.

Fifi, the mascot of the race, is an old hand at maneuvering through the different obstacles.

As the day went on, the crowds got larger. Here they're waiting for the next racer to enter the mud pit. After the harbor, the racers go to a park where they go through a sand pit then a mud pit.

The mud was quite a challenge for many of the teams.

We also had fun watching the kids in the mud pit
when the racers finished.

After the mud pit, we were tired, so we headed home with talk of next year's race and the team we might enter one day. So for this day of fun, I am thankful.

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Until next time...